


Sleepyhead

by colorfulCheshire



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dream Bubbles, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Quadrant Confusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 15:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2155473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorfulCheshire/pseuds/colorfulCheshire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can't help but to feel partially at fault for your ex-moirail's downfall, so you can't find it within yourself to push him away now when he has no one else, even if this is dragging you into something neither of you know how to deal with.  For now, you suppose this is nice, even if it won't last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepyhead

_[ You were one inch from the edge of this bed.  
I drag you back, a sleepyhead. ]_

-

“Ampora?”

He had turned quickly, his cape twirling around his knees as his fins flared in surprise before drooping in what you could only assume to be shame. He had lifted a hand tentatively and waved, blank stare stuck to the floor and refusing to look up at you. You’re not sure who apologized first, although the both of you knew who should have been the one to do so after what happened.

He cracked first, his arms thrown around your neck as he muttered all of his flaws against your neck, cool breath steady despite the shaking in his limbs. You’re not sure when the two of you moved to a makeshift blanket pile in his dreamed up respiteblock, but he’s still confessing all of his transgressions into your shirt as you just sit there and rub his back carefully, thinkpan still trying to catch up on whether this is okay or not. He deserved his own death, but you can’t find it in yourself to refuse him any sort of comfort, of the past promise that you broke to a version of him that knew nothing of what was going on. How long was he holding on to that before he snapped? Fuck, you’re terrible.

“Evveryone hates me, Kar, wwhich I can’t say I really blame them but it’s been so _long_ ,” he whines, claws worrying holes in your shirt. His breath hitches and he continues in a mortified whisper, “they can’t leavve me like this forevver, right? I’m sorry . . .”

They can, and they might, you’re sure of it. It’s probably hard to let that go when you’re stuck in the afterlife with the same damn people for eternity. They have no reason to forgive him.

 _‘Then why are you forgiving him?’_ Because you can’t help but to take some of the fault yourself. You were the leader; you can’t just shirk the blame because you want to.

He’s actually crying now and your heart hurts to see him fall so low, the prideful prince. You feel guilty for pitying him, your failed moirallegiance with Gamzee boring into your conscience, but that must be your fate – Karkat Vantas: the pale tragedy. Even with this thought, you slip your arm beneath his cape and pull him close against you, rubbing your fingers along his spine as you hush him gently, your heart tight in your throat as you hush your own thoughts of how wrong this is.

Even without Gamzee, this shouldn’t be happening. You can’t be this for him, not after you left him when he needed it most. You were supposed to keep him from snapping and killing everyone – it was your fucking responsibility and you fell through. You are the worst fucking moirail to ever try and claim a quadrant, and he needs someone so much better than you, someone who can actually sit and spend eternity with him instead of fading into the waking world of the living. He has no one else, though.

He curls closer against you, his cool arms wrapped desperately around you as he quiets himself. You run your free hand through his hair and feel another pang of pity when he leans into the touch, a heavy sigh shifting his shoulders. He looks up at you, cheeks flushed violet and white eyes rimmed with the remnants of tears, and all you can do is stare back, unsure of what to say when he’s looking at you so desperately. You’re not sure what he interprets from that but he shifts higher, his hands not leaving you as he sits up.

You can’t say you’re surprised when he leans down close and kisses you, all tension and fear behind his cool lips. You should probably pull away, tell him that the two of you can’t do this, that you’re still here for him despite this, but you can’t find it in yourself to push him away, to stop yourself from pulling his face to yours gently to reciprocate.

Your touch is gentle, fingers carefully tracing the spines of his fins in a gesture that is far too pale when you’re drinking in his cool lips while trapped in this daze. He’s a stark contrast to you, lips cold and hungry as his fingers tug in your hair desperately. He wiggles closer, kissing you roughly as he pulls his body flush against yours.

He’s straddling you when he finally pulls away, panting for breath with pale eyes open wide. His hands are firm against your head and all you can do is look up at him quietly. You should talk about this, put an end to it before it goes any further and he ends up even more hurt, but his weight on your hips is nice and what are you even supposed to say? There’s a reason to stop this, you know, but you can’t really think of it at the moment. Why was this bad again?

He leans down again and with your thinkpan still grasping for what it is you’re supposed to say, you turn your head, but oh, he’s not going for another kiss. Instead, he buries his face against your neck, shifting to lay against your torso and hug you close before stilling again. You wrap your own arms around his back, feeling a bit more grounded when you can feel the rise and fall of his breathing along the muscles of his back.

“Don’t leavve me, Kar.”

“You know I can’t stay here,” you answer so quietly that for a moment, you’re not sure if he heard you.

“I knoww,” he answers back after a long pause, voice cracked and tiny, and you feel like you’re drowning in guilt.

You don’t know what to say or what to make of the situation, but maybe you can talk about it another time when you can get your thoughts together, when you don’t have a pitiful, dead seadweller falling asleep in your lap, his cape draped around both of you like a blanket. You can’t help but to hug him close protectively, this poor troll.

-

When you wake in the cold darkness of your own respiteblock, you’re torn between the desire to try and go back to sleep and an anxiety telling you to never sleep again so you don’t have to figure this out. You sit up in your pile, hang your head, and find respite in your open palms as they hide your tears. As always, you have no idea what you should do.

-

_[ They couldn’t think of something to say the day you burst,_  
 _With all their lions and all their might and all their thirst._  
 _They crowd your bedroom like some thoughts wearing thin,_  
 _Against the walls, against your rules, against your skin. ]_


End file.
